Entering 2010: A Seattle Odyssey

With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke and his second solemn entry into the masterpiece series about the adventures in space between man and machine, I can't help but look forward to 2010 with a bit more — pardon the pun — down-to-earth optimism about the changing ways man interacts with machines. That is, how we are entertained through them.

The game industry is changing. Of course, this has always been true but arguably never so quickly and more profoundly than it has lately. We're entering an exciting era that relies less on hardware advances and more on the socially-driven community and microtransactions rather than larger lump sum transactions. More than ever this industry relies on the increasing connectivity and resulting social bonds being formed within the online community. These changes are being helped along by a more frugal game-playing public and streamlined, cost-cutting developers and publishers. As online-enabled play becomes a de facto feature within almost every gaming experience, the 2010 LOGIN Conference will be weighing every link in these new value chains, considering how they will affect developers and the public who plays their creations. It's exciting stuff, to say the least!

With 2009 drawing to a close and 2010 just days around the corner, we'd like to remind you that the call for speakers will be ending on January 25, 2010, just over a month from now. Now is a great time time to consider the topics you're most passionate about and expert in, review the LOGIN guidelines and send a proposal over the holiday break.

In the spirit of the season, we'd also like to give you a nudge about the involvement of the LOGIN Conference in the KIVA lending project. To this point Team LOGIN has loaned over $700 to deserving micro-loan recipients. It's a unique recycling but a good kind, that this money can be returned to the loaner or re-loaned again. We thank those who have contributed and hope you'll consider loaning for this worthy cause. Take a look at KIVA and what work they do, and then join the LOGIN Lending Team.

Evergreen Events and the members of the LOGIN Conference advisory board wish you and yours a safe, healthy, prosperous holiday season and a fantastic new year. We'll be seeing you in the near future.

Paul Philleo Contributing Editor LOGIN Beat

Speaking Opportunities at LOGIN 2010

The Call for Speakers is open to all online game industry experts worldwide, whether for console, PC or mobile platforms. Candidates are asked to review the topics of interest and session submission tips on the LOGIN 2010 website and then submit a completed session proposal form with 1,000 word abstract and biography before the deadline of January 25, 2010.

Visit the LOGIN Speaker Submissions Page

One Look Back, Two Steps Forward

While the last ten years have produced an incredible array of products for all game platforms, we see hints that the next decade will be even more fantastic in gadgetry and games. It will also be a decade where the industry will be more focused in developing products for its audience. Some industry veterans have even suggested that by 2020 there won’t be a definition of “Console” or “PC”. There will instead be a central system in every home that shares a link to hubs scattered throughout each room. Most of us have heard this idea more than once before, though it is now finally becoming reality. Let's take a look back in time for a moment and put the pace of advancement of the industry into perspective:

• Total software sales in 1999 = $6.1 billion
• Nvidia introduces the GPU
• Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 5.0
• Sega Dreamcast console released
• Sierra releases the Half-Life PC game

The past several years has been a time of chaotically rapid growth for the industry, where innovation didn't skip a beat which resulted in hundreds of unique games. It began with Massive multiplayer online games and first-person shooters taking center stage. Games that satisfied interest in all age groups and not just niche markets, were the odd-ball minority. What we have begun to see from discussions at events like LOGIN toward the end of this decade, is that the game industry has begun to understand its place as an entertainment source. It's gearing up for an even more specular, but more paced run in the next.

Some of what we’ve learned so far is that in order to be successful in a market that is increasingly becoming more global and social based, is that you have to be open to new ideas from outside your industry. Who would have thought that the game industry, innovative by its very nature, to require flexibility and openness? But that’s exact what the industry is beginning to understand that it needs. It’s also learning that the old paradigm of games with huge production scopes just for specific markets is no longer effective. We're seeing the age of an average user of an iPhone creating fun games with just a little spare time and a bit of programming knowledge.

What is driving this understanding is centered in the casual market, currently being led by companies like Zynga, creators of the hits Farmville and YoVille based on Facebook. The next decade we will see just about all sectors of the game industry going casual. There are several reasons for this trend, but the one above all else is that it simply makes market sense. While the previous decade started out with many companies offering niche products, they are now looking to the next with casual games that have gameplay concepts and opportunities that create a fun environment at nearly all age and play styles.

What will the next decade ultimately bring us in terms of technology and communities for these casual games? Just last month, Square Enix’s chief, Yochi Wada, said that “In ten years’ time a lot of what we call ‘console games’ won’t exist”, suggesting that the death of the console will occur and the ideas of a home network I suggested above will emerge. This central nexus of technology that has combined from the past decade's efforts will give us an opportunity to share and experience games with each other like never before.

The best outlook for the next decade in my view comes from Matthew Rafat, editor at Seekingalpha.com. He said “If social networking games and mobile gaming are the future, then smaller, more nimble companies will be more competitive because of their limited size, which leads to lower overhead, and their focus on bringing less complex games to market, which allows games to be introduced to the public faster and with less potentially devastating financial consequences”.

Whatever the next decade ultimately brings us, you can be assured that it will have a few pleasant surprises up its sleeve. If it doesn't, then the industry didn't take enough steps in the right direction. It just needs to focus on identifying exactly what its direction is to be, whether that requires a brief look backward, or two innovative steps forward.

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Mathew Anderson Contributing Editor LOGIN Beat

Industry Highlights

PlayStation Home hits 10 million users

PlayStation Home now has more than 10 million users, Sony has revealed. It announced the figure alongside three new Home spaces themed on Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time and MotorStorm. According to Sony, a Home game space should now be a paramount part of the marketing strategy for any new game. »

Story on gamesindustry.biz

Social gaming market worth upwards of $5 billion in 3 years, says Playdom

Playdom CEO John Pleasants, who joined Playdom from EA earlier this year, told Bagga that the Western market for social gaming could be incredibly large in a few years. "I think the western market is somewhere between $0.5-1.0 billion today and it can be $3-5 billion over the next three years. It's growing more than 100 percent a year and all the metrics are moving in the right way," he said. "That starts with Internet penetration worldwide, followed by social networking penetration, followed by percent of users of social networks that play games, followed by percent of people who pay inside of these games, followed by how many games they play per month, followed by ARPU per paying user. Add it all up; they're all growing and if each of those things goes up you know 20 or 30 percent or whatever the respective numbers are, it adds to 5-10x of the category over a three to four-year period of time." »

Article on GameDaily

Microsoft patents the exercise guilt trip

Microsoft's filed a patent that would make avatars more realistic and less idealized, with the point of getting your husky ass out to exercise if what you're seeing in the dashboard is a more realistic presentation of yourself. "Avatar Individualized By Physical Characteristic," is what Microsoft is claiming. "Linking the avatar to a physical characteristic of a user provides leverage to provide incentives or constraints that can encourage good behavior (e.g., healthy behaviors, virtuous behaviors, etc.)," says the patent. »

Story on Kotaku

Funcom launches casual MMO arm

Norwegian developer Funcom has announced the establishment of SweetRobot, a subsidiary that will make "social and casual" MMO games. SweetRobot's first project will be Pets vs. Monsters, aimed at an eight to 12-year-old audience. Players ride pets into battle as well as enjoying typical RPG progression. The game will have a small streaming client, and although the business model has yet to be decided, it will be initially free. »

Story and Interview on Eurogamer